Madame Tussauds Budapest

The Hungarian figures are the strongest argument for visiting in Budapest rather than at any other Madame Tussauds. Seventeen were made for the opening, most of them in secret at the brand’s studio in London, and the public had a say in who made the list.

In this zone you get Sissi with her carriage, which you are invited to sit in; King Stephen under a set of heavenly lights; Kossuth giving a recruiting speech; Béla Lugosi with a Dracula coffin to climb into for a photo; the poet Sándor Petőfi reciting in his favourite cafe; and the singer Katalin Karády in a vintage Mercedes.

Elsewhere in the building the painter Munkácsy paints your portrait while you sit on a sofa, Katinka Hosszú stands by her starting block and Puskás waits for you to take a penalty.

This is the part first-timers rush and regulars linger over. Give it the first 20 minutes, while the museum is quietest.

The international figures fill the Movie, Music, Fashion, Sport and VIP Party zones and Budapest Boulevard. Named on the museum’s own pages when we checked: Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg on the film sets, Freddie Mercury, Harry Styles, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez and a new Taylor Swift in Music, Lady Gaga and Barbara Palvin on the runway, Ronaldo, Messi and Dominik Szoboszlai in Sport, and Brad Pitt, Madonna and Ryan Gosling at the party. Peter Falk plays Columbo on the Boulevard.

It’s a wax museum. The figures are well made, the photo opportunities are obvious, and you’ll either find this fun or you won’t. Line-ups change, so treat the names above as a guide, not a promise.

The dressing-up boxes are the trick most people miss: wigs and hats beside Lady Gaga, football shirts by the Sport figures, a guitar and drum kit on Freddie’s stage. Use them.

Epic Encounters is the world-leaders room: Pope Francis in a Vatican setting, Xi Jinping, and Queen Elizabeth II with a throne you are invited to sit on. It is a small zone and the photographs are the reason to stop.

The Queen with a cup of tea is the one everybody takes. Get it done early if you are visiting at a weekend.

What separates this branch from older ones is how much of it is built to be climbed on. The visual world was designed by the studio Kentaur, and the interactive list is long: an Oscar selfie wall that puts your name on the screen, Tom Cruise’s motorbike in front of an LED wall that drops you into the film, a boxing machine in the Sport zone, and a DJ booth at the VIP party set in a Gellért-style spa decorated with Zsolnay ceramics.

Several sets are Budapest itself: the Chain Bridge tunnel, the Danube promenade and Fisherman’s Bastion, with light and sound shows along the way. This is where the 60 to 90 minutes goes, so do not photograph the figures and walk on.

The Wax Hand Station, where you dip a hand in warm wax for a cast, was suspended when we checked, which the museum puts down to energy-saving measures. Ask at the desk if it matters to you.

Half the appeal of Madame Tussauds Budapest is the building. Palazzo Dorottya was completed in 1823 for the iron merchant József Wurm to plans by Mihály Pollack, on a plot that had held salt warehouses.

Wurm ran a coffee house on the ground floor, where Hungary’s first chess club met. A bank bought the house in 1894 and had Alajos Hauszmann add a glass-roofed banking hall in the courtyard and the ornate entrance on Dorottya utca.

The museum’s ticket hall sits under the palace ceiling, columns and all. It would not surprise me if some visitors remember the ticket hall better than the figures. Look up before you go in, and look at the Dorottya utca facade on the way out.

The Pop&Roll Art Toilet is at the same address and is free with any admission ticket after your visit. It is what it sounds like: 20 working toilets, each one styled by the artist kissmiklos, with nearly 100 artworks across the space, its own soundtrack and its own scent.

Give it ten minutes on the way out. It keeps slightly different hours from the museum, opening at 9:30 and running half an hour past the museum’s close, and on Friday it is open until 20:30.